Noel
by Twinings
Summary: Marley was dead, to begin with. Wait, who's playing Marley? Somebody get Arnold Wesker on the phone. -CAT-
1. Christmas Past

_Disclaimer: The Scarecrow and all Gotham-related characters belong to DC Comics. _A Christmas Carol_ belongs to Charles Dickens._

_This is a CATfic (www. catverse. com) taking place on Christmas Eve, 2013 (Arc 4), roughly the same time as "Surprise!"_

_There will be two more chapters after this, or so I fervently hope. Tonight, I will be driving to the airport. On the interstate. By myself. Pray for me._

_Seriously. I need the moral support. (I wouldn't be doing this if my Ops wasn't worth it!)_

* * *

_Noel_

"Wake up!"

The shriek, accompanied by a hard slap across the face, brought Jonathan Crane out of a sound sleep as fast as anything ever had. He sat bolt upright in bed, gasping, arms crossed over his chest in a vain attempt to slow his racing heart. The last time someone had woken him up that way, it had been in Arkham, when the Joker had wanted an extra pair of hands to help make Joker Venom out of pilfered cleaning supplies. He should have known the clown was going to spritz him before the night was done. And, of course, no one in Arkham would _willingly_ investigate hysterical laughter where none should be. He'd dragged himself up two flights of stairs before his oxygen-starved muscles gave out on him. Then he'd still had to wait nearly an hour before someone finally decided it was worth it to investigate the wheezy pleas for heh-heh-help.

His airway constricted just thinking about it. But that was not the Joker sitting at the foot of his bed.

It was a strange figure--like a child, but not a child. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible. The Joker had gone through a number of alterations in appearance over the years, but he'd never had a halo.

Then again, the woman leaning over him wasn't exactly angelic, even if she was dead.

"Captain?"

She wiggled her fingers at him.

"Hey, Squish. How's it going?"

"Why—"

"—am I here?" she finished for him. "To teach you a lesson, obviously. You need to learn the meaning of Christmas before it's too late. Now, come on. Whether I'm a ghost or an undigested potato, I totally overslept and we should have done this half an hour ago." She reached for his hand. He pulled back, frowning.

"Why did you _hit_ me?"

"How should I know? It's _your_ subconscious." She giggled. "But if you need to blame someone else, you can safely assume that it was done for Techie's amusement. I'm the wrong ghost for it, but Al wouldn't wear the dress."

"The dress," he repeated, wondering for a moment just what Al would have looked like, all gussied up. That was easier than wondering what it meant that he was still dreaming about THEM.

"Yeah," said the Captain. "It's all very technical. Just trust me." She wiggled her fingers at him again, trying to be spooky. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past!"

"I gathered," he snapped. "If we're going by that script, wasn't I supposed to get a warning before you pounced on me, oh gentle spirit?"

She ducked her head, trembling. Without thinking, he reached out to touch her, just a hand on the shoulder--and they were gone, standing on an open country road, with snow-dusted fields on either hand.

"No one cares about you," the Captain muttered. "Who besides the three of us would bother to help you? You've never had a real friend." She looked up at him with that old twinkle in her eye. "Or have you, hmm?" She took his hand and led him down the road without waiting for his answer, which would have been an emphatic no.

He wasn't very much surprised, when she dragged him into the schoolroom, to see a skinny little boy bent over a desk all by himself, painstakingly writing out a letter with frequent assistance from the dictionary standing open in front of him.

"Okay, that's me," said Jonathan. "Kindergarten. The last day of school before the Christmas break. I had just turned five. Do we really need to see this?"

An absolutely radiant smile spread across her face.

"You started school at four?"

"Granny didn't want me in the house." She was just a dream. What did it matter what he said to her?

Outside, someone screamed. Or laughed. In children, it could amount to the same thing.

He moved to the window. Down below was a group of boys beating the holy hell out of each other with flying chunks of snow, breathless with the joy of violent games.

He turned away from the sight, to find the younger Jonathan's eyes trained on him. There was something startling about that, enough to freeze him in place, meeting his own gaze across a gulf of more than three decades. Then the boy looked back down at his letter and sniffled wetly. Jonathan felt his nose crinkle in disgust. He remembered that sniffle. The nasty little head cold that just wouldn't die. The toilet paper he'd stuffed in his pockets because he couldn't get his hands on any tissues. His nose had been rubbed raw by the constant wiping, and he'd learned to suck down cough syrup without a peep of protest.

And was it just blocked sinuses that were making that little boy's eyes water?

"You were lonely," the ghost said, so very sadly, and wrapped her arms around his waist before he could pull away.

"Very astute," he grumbled. "Look at me. I was _five_. I didn't know what people were really like."

Outside, the other boys shrieked with laughter. Inside, the boy at the desk put his head down and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. The Captain looked up at Jonathan. Mournful. Depressingly so.

"Do you feel anything?" she asked.

"No."

"I don't think I can watch this, Squishy." She pressed her face into his chest, very solid for a ghost, and so cold he ached where she touched him. "Could you please _pretend_ you're getting it so we can skip ahead?"

"Fine. I wish I had gone outside to play with the other brats. It would have been the best Christmas ever. Now can we do the part where I wake up and buy a turkey?"

She smiled and shook her head at him.

"Close your eyes." He did.

When he opened them again, they were standing outside in the half inch of snow that was as much as his hometown ever got. His younger self was making his way very carefully down the steps, unsteady in his too-big snow boots that he was supposed to grow into. And the other boys had broken off from their game to cluster around the unsuspecting child.

One of them—his name had been Peter—scooped up a chunk of snow and ice and packed it tight around a rock. Jonathan was surprised to feel her hand wrap around his and squeeze, biting cold but doubtless intended to be comforting.

"You should wear gloves," he said absently.

"With fingers? You know I can't find any that fit." It was true, she had the same kind of hands he did, with long, thin fingers—piano players' hands, he'd heard them called.

"So cut the fingers off. You had no problem doing that bef—" He broke off when she held up her free hand, and he realized that she _was_ wearing fingerless gloves, the same ones she had worn in reality, with 'good' printed on the back of one hand, and 'evil' on the other. Impossible to tell by feel alone; his hand in hers was completely numb.

He did, barely, feel her grip tighten at the cry of alarm from the little boy as the hard-packed snowball smashed him in the face, exploding in a shower of icy shards. Too-small mittens lost purchase on the handrail; too-large boots skidded off the steps, and the boy found himself sitting on the ground, dazed, with blood gushing from his nose and melting snow seeping into his pants. He touched a hand to his nose, more surprised than anything else. Then the tears welled up in his eyes.

"Why—why did you _do_ that?" he asked in something approaching a wail. The others crowded around him.

"Lookit the baby crying."

"We're just playing games, baby. Ain't you ever had a snowball fight before?"

Oddly enough, the only thing Jonathan felt, watching this again from the outside, was mild annoyance with their accents. His great-grandmother, the pretentious old woman, had drilled _proper_ English into him from an early age; they may have been as poor as anyone he knew, but as long as her grandson didn't sound like an inbred hick, she could claim to be better than her neighbors. As a boy, he had been vaguely aware of the difference between his speech and that of those around him, but he hadn't really understood until college, where, for the first time in his life, he _hadn't_ seemed so very out of place. No one in Gotham sounded like this. Even the girls, who all had southern accents to varying degrees, had sounded educated. (Well, only Al's accent had really been southern. Techie had only had a few traces mixed in with her much stronger Midwestern accent, and the Captain had almost always made a concerted effort to rid herself of the evidence of her heritage. Or maybe that was just the product of her city upbringing. It wasn't as if it really mattered anymore.)

"Woolgathering, Squishykins? This scene loses its potency if you're not paying attention."

He spared a glance for the child lying facedown in the snow, trying and failing to fend off hard-packed missiles, and shrugged indifferently.

"I've seen it."

"Okay, okay." Her free hand disappeared into her pocket, and the scene blurred and reformed into—his house. His decrepit old plantation manor, of dull red brick, in all its crumbling glory, a house so large and imposing, he had always felt lost inside, too small to matter in the slightest.

His younger self was trudging up the walk, past the rows of corn that shielded the house from prying eyes. He clutched his backpack to his chest, shiny plastic made to look like that first Green Lantern now torn in half, school papers hanging out every which way, a jumbled mess. One blood-soaked mitten was pressed over his mouth and nose, as much to stifle his hitching sobs as to try to stop the bleeding.

Jonathan shifted his weight uncomfortably. He didn't _remember_ this. He could imagine what was going to happen—what _had_ happened—he hadn't been terrified of his great-granny without reason. But he didn't remember this particular occasion.

"This is important," the Captain said. "I wouldn't make you watch this if it weren't."

"I don't care," he decided. "I'm ready to wake up." He didn't need yet another lecture on how expensive things were, even bought secondhand, how they couldn't afford for him to keep ruining every nice thing he had, that he needed to stop antagonizing the other children, that he needed to work harder, stop daydreaming, stop crying, stop being so different, that he was lazy, he was spoiled, he was the seed of the devil, he was just like his mother. Ungrateful with a heart full of sin. He got enough of _that_ from his psychiatrists.

He would have expected his younger self to go straight into the house. Even at that age, he'd known better than to try to shirk his punishments—hiding only made it worse when he was caught. But the boy limped right past the front porch and around the back, heading, Jonathan realized, for the chapel.

He tried to yank his hand out of the Captain's. She clung to him.

"I've had enough of this. I'm leaving."

"Squishy, _no_! You need this. Trust me. Please."

"Trust a product of my own subconscious? You're under my control, and I say this dream is _over_."

Nothing changed.

"Subconsciously," she said, "you know you have issues you need to work through before it's too late."

"I hate you," he replied.

They followed the boy into the old chapel, noisy as ever with the flapping and quarreling of roosting birds. Jonathan had rarely ventured inside of his own free will. To him, it was a place of punishment, fear and the smothering dark. It hadn't taken him very long to stop looking for God there, or anywhere else. But like any other child, when he was very young he'd believed what he'd been told.

That didn't stop the boy from carefully propping the door open with a rock before he would take a single step inside. He dropped to his knees before the broken altar, still casting nervous glances toward the door, as if, without his vigilance, it might swing shut and trap him inside.

Waiting unseen in the doorway, Jonathan almost felt as if he were the one holding the door open, providing the boy with a path to safety. Ha.

With one final glance toward the exit, the younger Jonathan took a folded piece of paper from his ruined backpack and bowed his head.

"Gracious Heavenly Father," he began tremulously. "M-merry Christmas. And Happy Birthday. Um…I wanted to pray because…I have this letter I wrote, and I was hoping You could help me. Also my nose won't stop bleeding and I don't feel very good, and if You could fix that, I would be…really, really grateful. But if not, that's okay. I know you're very busy. But I do need help sending my letter, God. I don't know how to get it to Santa Claus without you."

"_What_ are you doing in here, boy?"

Jonathan nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn't heard that voice in twenty years, and it _still_ made him feel like a little boy in trouble. He took a dive out of the doorway, dragging the Captain along with him.

She hugged him.

"She can't touch you now."

"I know that, you idiot," Jonathan snarled, and shoved the ghost away. She stumbled back, falling right through the shadow in the doorway.

For a moment, it was nothing more than a silhouette, massive and imposing. Jonathan's stomach churned.

Then, before his eyes, the shape re-formed into…a woman. Just a woman, old and frail. Iron-willed and quite as coldly deranged as he remembered, but somehow smaller than she had seemed when he was young. The old-fashioned, high-necked black dress she had always worn was tight and starchy, emphasizing the slightness of her build—to his immense surprise, she was thinner than he was. Shorter, too. They had stood eye to eye the last time he'd seen her, before that last four inch growth spurt near the end of his senior year of high school. Now, tall though she was, he found himself looking down at her.

He laughed a little in disbelief as his younger self whimpered and cringed back.

"Well, boy?"

Her voice was sharp, not a hint of weakness to be found. The child burst into tears.

"I'm sorry, Granny. I didn't mean to do anything bad."

She moved like lightning, incredible for someone her age. The boy had no chance to fight back. Arthritic or not, she had a hell of a grip, strong enough to drag him right off his feet.

"I didn't _mean_ to," she taunted as he fought to keep his balance. "You're pathetic, boy. Spoiled, selfish—"

"No, Granny!"

"What do you call this, then? _Praying_ for Christmas presents. You worthless little shit." She flung the boy away from her. He landed on his face in the dirt, sending a fresh spurt of blood from the nose that had very nearly run dry. He scooted away from her, holding his breath hard in an attempt to control his tears.

The Captain was crying harder than the child. Jonathan was glad she was just a figment of his imagination.

He nudged her.

"It got better."

Apparently, that was her cue to throw her arms around his waist again.

"_When_?"

"Hmm." He frowned, thoughtful. When had the old woman died? "Eleven years."

"I can track her down for you," the Captain said hopefully. "I'm dead, you know."

"It hadn't escaped my notice." He patted her shoulder, hoping to remind her to let go. She didn't take the hint. "You're not doing your job very well, dead Captain."

"What?"

"The boy. He's leaving. Don't we need to follow him?"

Her grip around his waist went painfully tight.

"Not in the script. Besides, you already know what _he's_ doing." Oh, yes. He did remember that part—being sent to cut his own switch. Oh, yes, he remembered that. Just getting a whipping hadn't been enough; his great-granny had been delighted to add to his dread of an upcoming punishment by making him do most of the work himself.

On the off chance that his Ghost-Captain was real, and could find a way to track the old woman down in whatever corner of Hell she'd made her own, he said, "She was afraid of snakes."

The Captain nodded.

"Understood."

"What am I going to do with that boy?" his granny muttered, leaning on the part of the altar still standing. (He had kicked it, he remembered, trying to escape the old black crow she'd told him was the devil come to punish him, that first time she locked him in overnight to pray for his sins.)

"She was also afraid of men," he added, surprised to have remembered it. "_Grown_ men. The kind who actually stood a chance of overpowering her in a fair fight." She had certainly ended up resorting to an increasing number of dirty tricks to keep him in line when he'd started to get too big to throw over her knee.

"I don't think I have any dead burly friends. I do have an old pet over in Boa Constrictor Heaven, though. Don't worry. We'll get her."

He felt his face stretching in an unaccustomed smile. Maybe he really was missing those fool girls and their weird desire to come to his defense.

The old woman leaned over to pick up the paper the boy had dropped. Jonathan wished rather fervently that he were able to give her a nice little shove.

She scanned the letter, eyes narrowed, lips pursed, looking as if she were trying to swallow a rotten lemon.

Then her expression went blank.

"What happened?" he blurted. "What's wrong with her?"

The Captain squeezed his hand.

"She's reading your letter to Santa. Whatever you wrote, it must have been good. What was it?"

"I have no idea." He didn't. It had been so long ago, he couldn't remember believing in the bearded toy fairy, much less what he had asked for.

The Captain's free hand slipped back into her pocket, and the scene froze.

"What did you do?" Jonathan asked sharply. The Captain's hand came out, clutching a remote control. She waved it in front of his face, teasing.

"Universal remote. Come on." She moved to read over the old woman's shoulder, dragging him along with her.

The handwriting was familiar, recognizably his, but smudged and uncertain.

The words were not familiar at all.

_Dear Santa,_

_Thank you for sending the teddy bear with the church ladies last year. It was very nice. We don't go to church any more and Granny says I am too old for stuffed animals any way. If you have any thing for me please bring it to my house but I don't need toys. Please send some medicine for my Granny's ARTHRITIS so she will feel better._

(He must have been awfully proud of all the work that had gone into spelling that word.)

_She hurts a lot and for Christmas it would be good if she would be okay. I would also really like something good for dinner please. Granny's favorite is green beans. I like macaroni and cheese. Thank you. That is all I need._

_Love,_

_Jonathan Crane_

_PS: If it's not too much trouble, I would also like to have a friend and something new to read. Thank you._

The Captain turned around and threw her arms around his neck.

"Oh, Squishykins, I'm your friend."

"Captain?" He shoved at her arm. "Can't breathe."

She sprang back.

"Sorry! I love you." She pressed a button, and time resumed its flow.

The old woman was smiling. He had never seen her do that before.

Of course, she lost it the moment the boy reappeared in the doorway, clutching a hickory switch and trembling from head to foot. He stared at her, too afraid to breathe. She stared back, severe as ever. Then, when he seemed about to faint from the tension, she gave a little shake of her head.

"Get back inside the house, boy."

He knew better than to stick around asking questions. He dropped everything and ran for it before she could change her mind.

And when he was gone, she smiled again, very briefly, folded the letter, shook her head, and left.

Jonathan turned to glare at the Captain, who was grinning eagerly.

"That's it? This was the best Christmas memory you could come up with? The day my great-grandmother decided not to beat me?"

Her face fell.

"Oh, well…you were thinking of _her_, so…so it was your selfless thought that…made things better and…stuff…"

"So _she_ was the selfish one? Oo-ooh," he squealed in falsetto. "It's a Christmas miracle!"

"You…ass." She grabbed his hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Skipping to the next scene." She pressed the button, and everything went blurry. He snatched the remote out of her hand. "Hey! Squishy, give that back!"

"No. I'm taller than you." He held the thing over his head, making her jump for it.

"Damn it, Squish! You're missing it!"

"I've seen it all before." He caught flashes of scenes he recognized. A Christmas party he'd been invited to when he was thirteen—a humiliating night that had set the tone for the rest of his adolescence. He certainly didn't want to show her _that_. The day his granny had fallen in the chapel and broken her hip. He would have liked to pause and watch her die again, but with the Captain hanging off his arm, he couldn't find the button in time. There was his first year in Gotham, when he'd been mugged outside Bergduff's, and rescued by a Salvation Army Santa—who then hit him up for money. And there was the year Al had stuffed him into a straitjacket and locked him in the trunk of a car. Ah, memories.

"Gimme the damn remote, Jonathan!" Tired of jumping, she leaped onto his back and tried to climb. He hit the dirt.

With a triumphant shout, the Captain made a grab for the remote. He yanked it back with all his might.

"Let go!"

"It's _mine_!"

He pulled. She pulled harder.

The remote control started shooting out sparks. Alarmed, they both let go.

"Whose bright idea was it to give _you_ magical electronics?" he demanded anxiously.

With an offended, haughty glare, she snapped, "_Yours_." And then she disappeared.

After a moment's hesitation, Jonathan picked up the remote. It didn't explode in his hand, so he pressed the power button.


	2. Christmas Present!

The room wasn't dark when Jonathan opened his eyes. In fact, there appeared to be a fire going. In the fireplace. Which did not belong in his bedroom.

"Still dreaming," he muttered.

"Yep."

Oh, Al. He would know that voice anywhere.

He sat up. Might as well get this over with.

Yes, there she was, the Ghost of Christmas Present, clothed in one simple green robe, bordered with white fur, under a Batman-logo hoodie. Apparently she didn't like the idea of leaving her capacious breast bare. She was hunkered over the fire with an old-fashioned corn popper--

"Al, no!" He made to tackle her, and would have done a spectacular job of it if the blanket hadn't caught his ankle. He pitched forward, just barely caught her around the waist, and knocked her sideways, scattering unpopped popcorn kernels across the floor.

She smacked him.

"Dumbass! I was going to make you eat that."

"Before or after you burned the house down?"

"After." She pushed him away and stood, then offered him her hand. He ignored that and got up without her assistance.

"I don't suppose it matters," he admitted. "You aren't real, and this isn't my house."

Al giggled. And since she didn't seem to want to explain it, he refused to ask outright why his subconscious had placed the two of them in some sort of nineteenth century boarding house instead of the attic over his friendly neighborhood crackhouse, which was where he knew he was _really_ sleeping, barricaded away in relative security.

"I've missed you, jerkface," Al said, and hugged him before he could move out of the way.

"Um…okay." She was warm. It was like being hugged by a real, living person. A person made of rum and sunshine.

Had someone found him and wrapped a blanket around his sleeping body? Or had the heat been turned on in the building? Either way would surely be a legitimate Christmas miracle. Things like that just didn't happen naturally. Not in Gotham.

"You haven't been eating," she accused. "Your bony ass—"

"Touch it and die," he interrupted, and felt her smile.

"I'm _already_ a ghost."

"Get off me," he said.

"Don't wanna."

Well, he had to admit, it felt nice being hugged by her. He was going to have to try to fall asleep next to a space heater next time. Or find a less threadbare coat. And a more permanent place to sleep. Maybe not as permanent as the lair he had shared with Al and her dead friends for so long, but a place where he could stop and take a real rest would be so…helpful.

"Al?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm very tired. Can we move this along?"

"Oh." She pulled away, looking guilty. "Sorry, Squish. You haven't been sleeping, either?" He said nothing. She socked him in the arm. "Damn it, Squishy!" She started to hit him again. He caught her hand and held it away from him.

"Stop! What is your fascination with beating me up?"

"You're the one dreaming this. It's _your_ fascination." She darted forward to plant a peck on his lips. He recoiled. "So what do you think _that_ means, smarty pants?"

"That I remember you as a critical failure of impulse control."

"Aw. Don't you miss me at _all_?" she purred, running her fingers up his chest. He took her by the shoulders and set her back.

"No."

"Liar. And to answer your question, it's simple negative reinforcement. I have to trick you into taking care of yourself somehow."

"Hitting is not negative reinforcement! If you're going to use psychology against me—_me!_—at least have the decency to get your terms right."

"It's your dream," she reminded him again, infuriatingly.

"Then why am I spending it with _you_?"

She smirked knowingly. He did his best to force himself awake. She just kept smirking.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Take me wherever it is you want to take me. Teach me to keep the magic of Christmas in my heart. Just don't touch me."

"No can do, boss!"

She tackled him. It really shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. His balance failed him and he went over backwards with Al on top of him, and landed hard on a floor that was not his own.

(Not that he _owned_ any floors at all. But perhaps the hardwood floor in the old, dark bedroom with the cheerful fireplace counted as intellectual property.)

This floor was carpeted in the short, scratchy brown fibers that had been popular in the 1970s, lime green shag's overlooked bastard brother.

Shag carpet would have gone better with the furniture.

"Al?"

"Yes, Squishy?"

"Are you aware that you're crushing my spleen?"

"Oh! Sorry, Squishy." She rolled off him, incidentally digging her elbow harder into his side.

There had really been no need for the Captain to slap him awake. Al was filling the role of the violent ghost just fine.

"What are we doing in Nygma's apartment?" he asked, hoping more to distract her than to get any real answers.

"How do you know this is Eddie's place?"

He didn't feel the need to answer that, pulling himself up by the arm of the green leather sofa.

"Why are we here, Al?"

"We're following the storyline Dickens laid out. Besides, it's not like you have a whole lot of friends to choose from."

"Nygma isn't my _friend_. He's less intolerable than most of the people I'm unfortunate enough to come into contact with, but that's _all_."

She raised an eyebrow.

"My point exactly. Now, come on." She took his arm and led him toward a faint sound he gradually recognized as singing.

"Oh, no. This isn't going to turn into a musical, is it?"

"Your subconscious. Just keep remembering that." She pushed open the kitchen door.

If there had been any doubt that this was Edward Nygma's apartment—which there wasn't—it would have been dispelled by the sight of the Riddler himself, dancing around his kitchen and singing with a banana for a microphone. He had just come out of the shower, or so Jonathan surmised from his wet hair and somewhat unconventional attire—socks, silk boxers, and a rumpled, half-buttoned shirt. Obviously, he wasn't expecting any company.

"I always knew he was an idiot," Jonathan muttered. Al cackled dementedly. Oh, he certainly hadn't missed _that_.

Edward executed an energetic spin, socks skidding on the linoleum.

"Mmm-mm-mmm, and hurry down the chimney tonight!"

Jonathan had to roll his eyes. What did he have to be so happy about?

"Come and trim my Christmas tree…"

"Idiot."

"What's so idiotic about it?" asked Al. "He's happy. Haven't you ever been in a good mood?"

"I've never been happy enough to dance around in my underwear, singing to a piece of fruit."

"Well, I wonder why, Mr. Grouchy."

Edward flung open the refrigerator door, head thrown back as he belted out, "I really do believe in you—let's see if you believe in me!" Then he bent over to look for something on the bottom shelf. Jonathan turned away, holding up a hand for good measure to block out the sight.

"Why would anyone want to live like this?" She didn't answer. "Al!"

"What! I wasn't—looking."

He stared at her.

"Oh, _God_, you _were_!" He hadn't realized her face could go that red. "_Al_!"

"Leave me alone! I'm not even real! Besides, he has great legs."

"_Al_."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Oh, Squishy, you're not jealous, are you?"

"What? No!"

"You know I always liked you best."

"I don't care!"

"Your little tushie is just the cutest—"

"Stop it!"

She reached around to give him a hearty pinch on the fleshiest part of his body.

"Honk!"

So he knocked her across the room. It was nice to know that, after her death, he didn't have to bother with the self control that had kept him from knocking her _completely_ senseless in life.

She sprawled in front of the door, head falling solidly between a pair of high-heeled leather boots, which were connected to fishnet stockings, which led up to—a thong. All right, so Nygma's outfit wasn't as bad as it could have been. At least he put pants on whenever he went outside. The blonde in the leather harness had no such compulsion.

She stepped over, or through, Al, tiptoeing as best she could in those ridiculous boots, eyes alight with the kind of henchgirl mischief he remembered all too well.

He looked down at Al, who was pouting.

"Thank you for not dressing like that," he said grudgingly.

"The clothes aren't what really matters here." She pointed at the mistletoe hanging above the refrigerator. "She's stealing my shtick."

Oh, no. He almost felt sorry for the Riddler, if only for a moment. Then it occurred to him that Nygma probably _liked_ that kind of attention.

Or not. The blonde's execution of the ploy was, if anything, worse than what Al would have done. At least with Al, there was a little warning. This one just pounced on him from behind, hands disappearing inside his shirt.

It really wasn't very nice to startle a man with his head deep inside a refrigerator. Edward yelped and nearly jumped out of his skin. His head slammed into the next shelf, spilling oranges across the floor.

Jonathan had to wonder why his subconscious had chosen to fill the refrigerator with so much fruit.

The blonde pulled back.

"Jumpy much? I'm sorry. You okay?"

"Oww," he moaned.

"Yikes." She helped him up, arm around his waist, hands straying only slightly. The dazed expression on his face was almost comical, though the hand he was pressing gingerly to the back of his head inspired nothing but sympathy.

"Ow. My head."

"Poor baby," said Al, snaking her arms around Jonathan's shoulders and waist from behind. He elbowed her away.

"I think he just might survive it."

The two of them followed Nygma and his woman back into the other room, where she sat him down on the couch and then straddled him, running both hands through his hair.

"Query? What are you doing?"

"Making sure you don't have a concussion."

"You can tell that by feel, can you?"

She leaned forward.

"Not really, no."

Jonathan grimaced.

"Are they going to—they're _making out._ Al!"

"Sorry," she said. "I can't fast forward. _Somebody_ broke the remote." She sat down on the rug and produced a deck of cards from some secret compartment in her clothing. "They're going to be a while. Rummy?"

An hour and forty-five minutes later, they finally broke for air. Jonathan put his cards down and did his best to seem as if he were paying attention—which wasn't the easiest thing to do, as both Edward and Query were now wearing even less clothing than they had been before.

"How's the head, brainiac?" Query purred.

"I don't know, I stopped paying attention."

"Why are we still here?" Jonathan grumbled.

"Shh. Just watch."

Query snuggled down on Edward's chest, pulling a blanket down from the back of the sofa to cover them both. It looked very cozy, but he couldn't really see the point.

Then Query reached for the remote. The Joker's laughter rang out from the TV, over a manic rendition of Jingle Bells.

"Not another Christmas special," she groaned.

"He hasn't missed a year since before there was a Robin." Query giggled.

"Jeez, you wouldn't think a supervillain would like Christmas."

"_I_ like Christmas," Eddie protested.

"You're special. I mean, none of your friends are into this kind of thing. Look at the Scarecrow."

"Yeah," said Al. "Look at you."

"Q, nobody likes Christmas _alone_. It's all about togetherness. You can't have togetherness if you don't have any friends." He frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe we should invite Jonathan over for the victory celebration. All that mint jelly is just going to go to waste if we don't get some help eating it."

"We have to have a victory before we can celebrate," Query reminded him. "And I don't think Batman is taking the night off."

"Lucky for us, neither is the Joker. Oh, look! Hostages!" They both leaned forward, eager to see who the special guest stars were this year.

"Hallelujah," Jonathan said dryly. "I sure have learned my lesson. Can I go now?"

"But we're not done yet," said Al.

"What else do you have to show me? Batman?"

Al smiled.

"Well…he _is_ thinking of you."

"Not interested."

"There's Mr. Freeze, too, and Jervis. And Harley's worried about you."

"Harley's an idiot."

"An idiot who genuinely likes you."

"Harley likes everyone."

"She doesn't _respect_ everyone's psychiatric technique."

He felt a momentary burst of pride before he turned and walked away.

"I'm not going, Al."

"Fine, if you really don't want to see the inside of the Batcave, I'll hand you over to Techie."

The Batcave? That would have been tempting if any of this had been real. But it wasn't, so he just followed her to the window, where it became apparent that they were several stories up.

She motioned for him to precede her.

"But I'm mortal," he said sarcastically, "and liable to fall."

"I know." She shoved him through the open window, and down he fell, too surprised to scream.


	3. A Week After Christmas Future

He woke up in an ambulance this time, to the familiar sound of sirens and concerned medical babble. There were three people hovering over him—two EMTs and the grim reaper.

Startled, he tried to scramble back, thinking for a moment that he was really awake. Then he remembered that they owed him another ghost.

"Techie?" he said, or tried to. His body didn't seem to be obeying him.

She shook her head warningly as the EMTs leaned forward to hold him down.

"He's seizing!"

_I am not, you idiots._

Was he? In the first two parts of the dream, no one had been able to see him. And in this part of the story, Scrooge saw what was going to happen when he was gone from the world.

Was he about to experience his own death? He had always thought the ending was silly. No one with any grip on reality could live that long without realizing that he was going to die someday.

But _someday_ and _right now_ were two entirely different concepts.

He tried desperately to force his muscles to unlock. All he got for his pains was a needle in the arm. One of the EMTs leaned over him, filling his entire field of vision, blocking Techie from his view.

"Stay with us, buddy. You're going to be okay."

Jonathan had certainly been around enough doctors in his lifetime to recognize that lie when he heard it.

He couldn't help starting to panic.

Then Techie leaned over him, through the other man. What he could see of her face below the hood was very solemn as she placed a finger over his lips.

The lights…bright…he blinked, confused. The lights were moving. No, _he_ was moving. He was on a stretcher, being wheeled down a hospital hallway.

He tried to look about for Techie, but found himself unable to turn his head.

"What have we got here?"

He strained to see who was talking. A nurse, he assumed, but there was no way to be sure. He could see nothing but the ceiling tiles.

"Another jumper." This one sounded _bored_. "John Doe. Christmas brings out all the losers."

"Brings them all here," the first one answered, heels clicking crisply on the tile floor. Did they know he could hear them? Did they just not care? And what nurse wore heels anymore?

"I don't know why they can't all just jump in the river. But _no_, if they're going to off themselves for the holidays, they have to make a whole pity-me _pageant_ out of it. And half of them are so pathetic, they can't even get that right."

"Marge! That's not exactly _sensitive_."

"But true." And they both giggled.

Jonathan willed his body to move. No luck.

What was this supposed to teach him? That if he didn't change his ways, he'd end up suicidal and alone? Alone, yes; he had to _expect_ that. But he hadn't found death an appealing concept since he was sixteen years old.

"So where do we stuff the stiff?"

"He's not dead _yet_."

"He will be. They all bite it sooner or later. And even if he does walk away from that much trauma, what do you think will happen the minute he gets his hands on something pointy? He might not even fail at it next time."

And with this kind of care, was it any wonder the suicide rate was high? Jonathan strained to move something—anything; it didn't matter what. His body willfully persisted in refusing to obey his commands. Just how badly injured was he supposed to be? He couldn't _feel_ much of anything, a mercy of his dreaming mind, as he knew that an actual fall from the height of the Riddler's apartment would probably have killed him. (There was a reason he didn't share his colleague's fondness for high rise apartments, and it had nothing to do with rent control.) But he didn't know if this feeling, or lack thereof, was supposed to indicate paralysis due to trauma, brain damage perhaps, or if it was just his subconscious trying to scare him. This situation wasn't exactly his idea of a picnic. In fact, with nothing but the squeaking of the gurney's wheels to distract him, his inability to move or communicate in any way was rapidly becoming nightmarish. Was _that_ his punishment for being a scrooge? To be locked into his own body for the rest of his life, aware but unable to affect the world around him? It would be almost like being buried alive, and at _that_ thought, he made up his mind to start screaming his head off until someone came along to _fix_ this. He managed a gasp that neither woman noticed.

The one named Marge spoke again: "Stick him in there with the Scarecrow."

Jonathan stopped trying to force a scream. _Scarecrow_? What new mindfuck was _this_?

"That super-criminal?" The nurse who was not named Marge sounded horrified.

"The near-_comatose_ super-criminal who's dying of pneumonia," her companion corrected.

"He isn't dying, Marjorie. You don't die of walking pneumonia," her companion corrected.

"Jim Henson did. Anyway, my point is that he's _far_ too heavily sedated to pose any threat to Leapin' Larry here." They both giggled. The gurney shuddered to a stop, then made a turn and brought him into darkness, a welcome change for his tired eyes.

They got him into bed with the kind of clinical precision that would not have been out of place among Arkham's finest orderlies. He could hear their shoes scuffing on the tile floor, the steady beep-beep and occasional _ping!_ of the hospital's shiniest machines, someone's raspy, labored breathing, the rattle and screech of a curtain being drawn. He could see nothing but the very dim outlines of the ceiling tiles. The nurses left him.

And then came the faint clatter from the other bed, and the beep-beep became a steady drone. Jonathan managed to gasp. Was he—the other _he_, the future Scarecrow—_dying_? Alone and helpless, without even the dignity of a gunshot wound or a fractured skull to prove he'd fought it?

One set of footsteps reapproached without haste, and passed him by. There was a faint rustle of movement, a sigh, and the beep-beeping resumed.

"You've got to stop struggling, Mr. Crane. We need to monitor your vitals. Just think what would happen if you had a _visitor_ and you made yourself flatline with all your fidgeting. You'd scare the daylights out of them." The nurses cackled in stereo, as if the thought of anyone visiting Jonathan Crane were as absurd as…well, it _was_ an absurd thought, but it still wasn't polite of them to laugh about it.

A weak moan came from the other bed, hoarse, but recognizably Jonathan's own voice. He would have shuddered if he'd had the chance.

The nurses continued to giggle as their footsteps receded. And then he was alone with himself.

What a pair of conversationalists they were.

With a supreme act of will, Jonathan managed to turn his head a quarter inch to the side. That was enough for gravity to take over. He flopped over quite gracelessly, managing to poke himself in the eye with a corner of the scratchy pillowcase. Wonderful. And he hadn't improved his view much. All he could see was the curtain dividing the beds.

But, wait—the light in the room was changing, giving him a gradually sharpening silhouette of the man in the other bed. And a thick mist was rolling in on the floor.

_What lame special effect will I come up with next?_

The phlegmy breathing slowed. Jonathan recognized—and well he should—the trick of trying to talk his own body out of the coughing fit it clearly wanted. Then, with a thready gasp, the Scarecrow lost his inner battle.

The sounds coming out of his chest were painful to hear, deep, wet coughs that wracked his whole body. He clearly had no strength to sustain this; the coughing would ease off, only to resume every time he thought he could draw a breath. Jonathan could see his feet moving, kicking against the foot of the bed, trying to arch his back, as if _that_ would help.

And all the while, a hooded phantom was growing out of the mist.

"Tech…"

The shape looming over the other bed slowly turned to face him. She shook her head.

The man in the other bed spasmed violently, leather straps rattling against the railings on the sides of the bed. They'd strapped him down. Of course they had. So much easier than actually keeping an eye on him.

He made a sound that wasn't coughing, and didn't have enough breath behind it to be crying. It was…it was…he'd heard it before, from one or two test subjects, right before they'd—it was a _gagging_ noise.

The heart monitor was racing out of control. From the other bed came a faint whine that must have been intended as a call for help. Jonathan waited for one of the nurses to come running in.

And kept waiting, while his alter ego's feeble thrashing diminished into even weaker, aimless twitching. The man stopped trying to cry out, focusing the totality of his will on sucking air through a passageway too blocked to allow it.

Then even that stopped. There were a few more jerks against the straps, purposeless reflex. A soft fricative puff. A click. And then, a few seconds later, he flatlined.

_Fuck. My last word was fuck?_

Well, it certainly did seem fitting.

He watched the specter turn and glide toward him like a nun—like _Techie's_ idea of a nun—and while he still didn't understand why she was afraid of Mother Theresa, he would have felt better if he could see her feet on the floor.

He also would have preferred her to push the curtain aside instead of simply floating through it, but if it spared him the sight of the body, he couldn't really complain.

She pushed her hood back and smiled at him. Her thicket of black hair was tied back in a knot, anchored in place with a candy cane. Typical.

"Hey, Squish. That's it for the drama. Can you believe they gave me the only non-speaking role?"

And as if he hadn't been fighting his own body for the better part of an hour, he sat up and grumbled, "If you weren't already dead, I would kill you."

"For what? Coming to lurve you in your time of need?"

"_What_ time of need?"

Sobering instantaneously, she took a seat on the bed, sinking down through his legs.

"Oh, Squishums. You don't still think you're dreaming, do you?"

"Of _course_ I'm dreaming. What else would this be?"

"A hallucination. Your brain's been without oxygen for several minutes. You almost died, you know, but they just now got you breathing again. Don't worry. You won't suffer any permanent brain damage." She patted his knee, which didn't work very well; she went right through him. "They say hypothermia is a nice way to go. Just like falling asleep. What do you think?"

"_What_?"

She tilted her head to the side.

"You mean you don't remember what happened? I would have thought freezing to death would have a bigger impression."

_This is absurd._

Wasn't it?

"I am not freezing to death."

"No, not now. Your body temperature's almost all the way back up to normal. Too bad the chill already weakened your—um…" She glanced over her shoulder at the curtain, wincing at the slip.

"Weakened my, um, what?"

"Ummmmm…" When he declined to let her off the hook, she relented and finished, "Immune system. Funny story, that. This Ghost of Christmas Future gig? Not at all what I signed up for. I," she said dramatically, "am the Ghost of Next Tuesday."

"Very amusing, Techie."

"Nuh-uh," she contradicted. "You idiot, you don't _get_ any more Christmases after this!"

He couldn't think of a way to respond to that. So he laughed.

"You're saying I'm going to die next Tuesday in a hospital bed, choking on my own fluids?"

Her face went hard, the way it always used to when she just _had_ to argue a point.

"_And_ vomit. And you only _die_ if you keep acting like a stubborn ass. If you get help early on, it will be no worse than it was last April, a good bit _easier_ in fact, and you'll be up and striking fear into the hearts of your enemies by New Year's. Or a reasonable approximation thereof."

Jonathan leaned back against the pillow. He'd decided that this dream was ridiculous and he wasn't going to pay attention to it anymore.

"So I'm going to die an unpleasant death. This kind of thing happened a lot more often when you three were still around to give me cookies before bed."

"I didn't see you turning them down. Not my white chocolate macadamia nut cookies," she added, as if he had been arguing with her.

She checked her watch. (Bright red, plastic, and emblazoned with a stylized S in a triangular shield. So much for unreasoning hatred of boy scouts.) "That's all the time we have, Squishykins. Now you have to wake up. Eat some roast goose and think of us. We love you." She got up and walked away—remembering in mid-stride that she was supposed to be floating.

"It's a turkey, you dead shrew," he called to her back. She froze and slowly turned to face him, framed by a door-shaped glowing _something_ expanding behind her like something out of The Twilight Zone.

"Turkey is for Thanksgiving. It was a goose."

Oh, just because she was allergic, she didn't want anyone else to enjoy it either.

"It was a turkey. I _like_ turkey."

"Then eat turkey. But it was a goose."

"No one eats goose."

"Dickens did."

"It was _not_ a goose." The fact that he couldn't remember for sure if the old man in the story had bought a goose or a turkey or something else entirely upon waking on Christmas morning didn't bother Jonathan in the slightest. If he was going to have to eat something when he woke up, it would be something he liked. And _no one_ he had ever heard of liked goose.

"You'd better be glad I didn't bring the bullwhip," Techie grumped. "I wanted to, but _no_, it's not 'thematically appropriate.'" She grinned fiercely and stepped into the light. "You dirty kinky boy." And as the room went dark, he heard her shout from some vast distance, "And it was a GOOSE! Dipstick."


	4. I didn't miss it! And I don't miss THEM!

And Jonathan woke once more, disoriented, achy, and immobilized, with red lights flashing in his eyes.

"This one's coming around," said a voice from somewhere above him. He started to try to sit up. "Thanks, Batman."

_Batman?_ Maybe he didn't want to sit up after all. A cocoon of cozy blankets was infinitely preferable to a punch in the nose. And since he had been wrapped up until nothing was showing but his eyes, there was a slim chance that he could actually go unrecognized. He had to assume that, whatever had happened, they hadn't found his mask and toxin, tucked away in a corner under some old newspapers. He would have liked to have had the glasses he'd left in that same pile, but it couldn't be helped. A quick twitch of his fingers told him that there were still a few capsules of fear toxin lying undisturbed up his sleeve, and that was all that really mattered.

Someone leaned over him, little more than a dark blur in a vaguely masculine shape.

"How do you feel, sir? Can you tell me what day it is?"

"S'my line," Jonathan said thickly. The shape above him tilted its head curiously. He swallowed hard, willing his tongue to loosen. "Christmas Eve. I know."

"Do you know your name?"

"Jacob Marley," he answered, the first name that came to his mind. "What--uh--what happened?" He knew he had been having some dream, and he _hoped_ it was over. But those flashing lights--that was an ambulance parked not far away. And he was wrapped in blankets. And if he had his doubts about the existence of ghosts, he also had his doubts about the true extent of his late minions' lateness.

There had to be an interesting story here, if only he had the patience to hear it. And if Batman didn't look at him too closely.

"You're lucky to be alive," said the...paramedic, Jonathan decided arbitrarily. It was as likely an appelation as any other. "Mr. Freeze flash-froze this whole block. If Batman hadn't shown up with his special thermal--thermal _whatevers_ to get you all out of the ice, we never could have revived you all in time."

"What a wonderful statement of the capabilities of Gotham's emergency services."

So, Victor was depressed again. He always was hell to be around during the holidays. That was probably a good thing, though. If Freeze was still laying about with his ice gun, trying to make sure everyone else was as miserable as he was, Batman wasn't going to stick around any longer than he had to.

And neither was Crane. He was going to find a much more secure place to bed down, and when he got there, he wasn't going to move for a week, not even for work.

Freeze gun. Of all the ridiculous things to happen to a man when he was trying to get a good night's sleep. He was going to have to have a long talk with Victor next time he landed in Arkham.

It was just a shame that fear toxin wouldn't penetrate a plexiglass bubble. But there had to be an air supply he could tamper with somehow. He had seen Victor gasping for breath after a batarang cracked his helmet; he must still need to breathe. Unless that was just a reflex brought on by panic...

"Sir?"

Jonathan's attention snapped back to the man bending over him.

"_What_?"

"I asked if you had anywhere to go tonight. You shouldn't be out in the cold, especially after this."

"I'll be fine." And he would. It would take a lot more than being flash-frozen and thawed by Bat-blankets to take him down. Hallucinations or not, he was feeling...relatively good.

"Are you sure? The hospital will keep you overnight, free of charge. We have insurance vouchers for supervillain attacks. And if you don't mind my saying so, you look like a warm bed and a hot meal would do you a world of good." Jonathan was on the point of protesting when the young man added, helpfully, "It's turkey."

And Jonathan hesitated.

At least it wasn't goose.

--

Meanwhile, across town in the Riddler's apartment, three not-so-dead women had just given up the ghost, as it were, and were just sitting down to a celebratory "no one in this room is even pretending to be dead anymore" dinner of ice cream and macaroni from a box with the Riddler and his henchgirls. And all three were thinking of their Squishykins. Was he feeling nostalgic? Had his Christmas been merry and bright? Would he be happy when they showed up on his doorstep in a week?

And, most important of all, were they going to regret revealing themselves to Eddie first, leaving Jonathan all alone? On _Christmas_?

But surely he would be fine. After all, as they kept reminding each other, how much trouble could he possibly get into?

* * *

_Author's note: I wrote this epilogue a while back, before I even finished the story, but I wasn't going to post it. I figured the story stood just fine without it. But Techie thought otherwise._

_The Mr. Freeze thing is also because of her. Originally, this was just going to be a regular old dream (though you may notice that parts of it do correspond to events in "Surprise!", namely, Eddie knocking his head on the refrigerator) but on reading the first chapter, she turned to me and said, "He's hallucinating, isn't he? He's freezing to death in a snowbank." And I said no. And then I decided, yes._

_I want to say thank you to every reader, past, present, and future, for keeping CAT in your hearts all year 'round. Happy holidays, in the flavor of your choice._

_And oh please, oh please, oh please go check out the latest official CATverse art at __adabsurdum. deviantart. com/ art/ CAT- Pure- Fanservice- 108143423__. You won't be sorry. You might cry or suffer some sort of cerebral hemorrhage, but you _won't_ be sorry._

_Lurve,  
3.0_


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